Israel warms up to New Year's, Soviet-style

By Daniel Estrin
Associated Press

Published: Sunday, Aug. 2 2015 12:59 p.m. MDT

In this Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011 photo, Israelis shop for groceries at a supermarket decorated with icons and ornaments for the Russian holiday of Novy God, in the town of Rishon Lezion, Israel. For years, many Israelis got a little jittery as New Year's Eve approached. Their neighbors, some of the nearly one million Soviet citizens who flocked to the Jewish state as the Communist regime collapsed, would decorate fir trees and wear Santa Claus-like hats _ celebrating New Year's Soviet-style. But after 20 years, Israel has finally come to terms with the Christmas-like custom, even if most of the country lights Hanukkah candles this time of year. (Oded Balilty, Associated Press)

RISHON LEZION, Israel — For years, many Israelis got a little jittery as New Year's Eve approached.

Their neighbors, some of the nearly 1 million Soviet citizens who flocked to the Jewish state as the Communist regime collapsed, would decorate fir trees and wear Santa Claus-like hats, celebrating New Year's Soviet-style.

But after 20 years, Israel has come to terms with the Christmas-like custom, even if most of the country lights Hanukkah candles this time of year.

Soviet-born immigrants will ring in this New Year with more oomph than ever before — a testament to the comfortable and influential niche they've carved for themselves in Israeli society. One hotel is throwing a Russian winterland bash and charging up to $660 a plate.

"How can we not celebrate? There's no holiday in Israel like this one," said Violetta Galbert, a nurse from Moscow, as her toddler son dived into a large box of tinsel at a supermarket catering to the Soviet-born immigrant community.

In this Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011 photo, Israelis shop for groceries at a supermarket decorated with icons and ornaments for the Russian holiday of Novy God, in the town of Rishon Lezion, Israel. For years, many Israelis got a little jittery as New Year's Eve approached. Their neighbors, some of the nearly one million Soviet citizens who flocked to the Jewish state as the Communist regime collapsed, would decorate fir trees and wear Santa Claus-like hats _ celebrating New Year's Soviet-style. But after 20 years, Israel has finally come to terms with the Christmas-like custom, even if most of the country lights Hanukkah candles this time of year. (Oded Balilty, Associated Press)

New Year's is not an official holiday in Israel because it is not a Jewish commemoration, but many young secular Israelis flock to bars and discos on Dec. 31.

It is the Soviet-style celebrations, though, that have raised eyebrows.

Irene Yavchunovsky's experience in the early 90s was commonplace: Her first year in the country, she decorated a fake miniature tree she brought from her native Ukraine — shocking her religious Jewish landlord.

"He said, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'It's not religious,'" Yavchunovsky, a writer and translator, recalled. "He was not happy we were doing those things in his apartment."

She tried, in vain, to explain: Her family was not celebrating Christmas. Soviet citizens didn't even know what Christmas was — the Communist regime replaced all religious holidays with party-imposed commemorations. "Novy God," Russian for New Year's, was the only nonpolitical holiday the Soviets allowed. Christmas icons were stripped of their religious symbolism and attached to New Year's Eve.

"It was the best, cleanest, most joyful holiday. It was completely clean of ideology," said Masha Buman, who arrived in Israel from what was then Leningrad. In the early 90s, she ran workshops for Israeli social workers to teach them the symbolic significance of Novy God. They were relieved to learn that it wasn't a Christian tradition, she said.

By most accounts, the Soviet immigration is considered an Israeli success story. The tiny country took in nearly a third of one million people in a two-year period and eventually absorbed more than a million newcomers, boosting its population by some 20 percent.

Two decades later, Soviet emigres occupy virtually every corner of Israeli society. Soviet immigrants or their children hold senior Cabinet posts and important military commands, and freely marry veteran Israelis. Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, himself came from the Soviet Union in the late 1970s.

Israeli rabbis, however, are less accepting of the immigrants' New Year merrymaking. Since 1998, they have banned most of the country's hotels and banquet halls — which are under their kosher supervision — to display trees, ornaments and other reminders of the holiday.

Novy God decorations have still made it out in the open. No longer are statues of Santa — called Grandpa Frost in Russian — sold only in small Russian-language bookstores. Today they're displayed nationwide in some of Israel's biggest supermarket chains — ones that don't seek rabbinic certification, like the Tiv Taam megastore in Rishon Lezion, a city south of Tel Aviv.

At the entrance to the store, a smiling mustachioed snowman statue wearing a Grandpa Frost hat towers over a tall pyramid of canned peas, mushrooms and mayonnaise — essential ingredients for traditional Novy God fare.

The store is also well stocked with vodka bearing labels like Kremlin and Russian Standard, hundreds of pounds of red caviar, a Russian delicacy, and — to the chagrin of many Israelis — pork, which is not kosher.

Store manager Alexey Spitsin, who is from Uzbekistan, says many Israeli customers objected to the Novy God decorations when he began working there 13 years ago, but this year only a few complained.

While many immigrants celebrate at home, Israel's most successful Soviet emigres will be throwing the most expensive Novy God party in the country's history — an opulent display of the oligarch-style wealth some quickly attained here and in the Old Country.

The Sheraton Tel Aviv Hotel on the Mediterranean seashore will be transformed into a Russian winter wonderland, with a wet bar carved of ice and faux snow fluttering from the ceiling. Partygoers will bid on works of art flown in from around the world. Some are expected to fetch millions.

The 300 Russian-speaking invitees include local politicians and businesspeople, and Jewish VIPs from Russia and Georgia flying in for the party on private jets.

One man is on the blacklist: Grandpa Frost. The hotel won't allow him in since he'd threaten its kosher certification.

Party organizer Yulia Mohrik said she reached a tasteful compromise: Grandpa Frost will ride around the hotel's perimeter in a horse-drawn carriage — shipped in from Buckingham Palace, no less — and will wave to the guests through the windows.

While the country's rabbis are reluctant to embrace the holiday, Israeli politicians have begun to endorse it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended his first official Novy God greetings last year. He did it again this year, over the objections of some in his office who are still uncomfortable with the holiday.

Adding to some Israelis' skepticism is the fact that though nearly all Soviet immigrants are related to Jews, about 300,000 of them are not Jewish according to religious law — meaning their mothers are not Jewish.

But Soviet-born immigrants insist they belong.

"The attitude is, 'I'm already here. I've planted roots, I have a job, I have kids,'" said Russian-born Buman. "Twenty years ago, it was an issue. Today it's not."